Unfortunately, I was unwell during week 9’s session and didn’t make it to the seminar, I did however follow along using the slides available from Moodle which allowed me to formulate a plan for the eventual assignment hand in. This plan includes a written checklist and analysis of the learning outcomes as well as some ideas for my 500-word essay shown here:

For week 9’s Research task I firstly self-discussed what the term ‘Sound Design’ means using in class resources to aid my ideas. Using this week’s Moodle slides (18-20) I came to realise that sound design or ‘a’ sound designer has no real fixed meaning as it broadly covers a range of practices from compositional work to creating unique and new sounds. The definition I resonate with the most is a quote from: Polis, M. and Rea, P.W. (2023) A filmmaker’s guide to sound design. New York, NY: Routledge. P163, and I interpret it as sound design is used to work out ‘what’ sounds need to be made and ‘how’ to make those sounds.

To complete the Research task, I found this short clip from film or TV as I feel it has lots of sound information to analyse as there is a wide range of action and environments:

Saving Private Ryan Omaha Beach Scene [4K HDR]

I think the primary focus of this opening scene is to portray the brutality of war as accurately as possible and with that glue together what you see visually with what would be heard, there is no music during this clip as this would be audibly visible and deconstruct the continuity of what is being show. During the clip you hear a considerable amount of foley work depicting the movements of each soldier which signifies emotion and the scale of what is portrayed, this idea of scale is also present in the use of only bullet flybys rather than actual gunshots, these also appear around the stereo field which signify chaos. My favourite part of this scenes sound design is when Tom Hanks experiences a large explosion, which is portrayed audibly as a sort of muted low-cut version of the events that are happening around. This part also includes some of the worst / extreme / emotional visual scenes and with the muted effect allows the viewers to concentrate and experience this using a different sound environment.

Reflecting on the reading task from this week:

This article by Westerkamp explores the connection between Acoustic ecology and soundscape composition. I noticed one point that stood out to me; that one of Westerkamp’s colleagues had tried to define soundscape composition as a sub genre of Musique Concrete which is something of a theme I notice quite a bit whilst reading this unit’s literature. Westerkamp sums it up by effectively saying that pushing something into a definition shelters it from other issues that created the need for the practice in the first place, it’s the idea of restriction that I see all the time, the idea that something should not be defined by other people’s ideas / what they think of it.

Terry Riley’s In ‘C’

Terry Riley, a small town born American engaged in musical academia from a young age, learning classical violin as his first instrument later moving on to mentored piano and compositional studies (Carl, 2009). In 1964, Riley released his composition ‘In C’, a radically different score that kickstarted the minimalist movement within the world of experimental music.

In C at its core is a score of 53 individual sections, inspired by the process of looping tape, with each pattern having its own unique melodic form that can be performed by any number of instruments, usually up to 35 but can be as little as a quartet. When playing this piece each musician has free reign over how many times they repeat each section, they can also choose when they would like to move onto the next one as long as they stay within 2-3 sections ahead or behind the other instruments (Schenbeck, 2007). They can also cease playing whenever they would like, the same rule applies for joining back in, usually one instrument is instructed to play a simple 8^th note metronome rhythm to ensure everyone is within time as shown in Riley’s original recording for this piece. The uniqueness of this is that no two performances will be alike therefore each 15 minutes to an hour and a half rendition will be its own composition that will not be heard again and removes any solo bravado or pressure on one instrument allowing each musician to relate to each other and co-create when performing (Bindeman, 2017) and (Berg, 2023).

The tonal qualities of this piece are of course centred around the C major scale, which is where its idea of minimalism stems from, as it’s based on a plethora of interchangeable loops it creates a psychedelic quality with Riley’s aim to introduce a trance like state for listeners as he was experimenting with different drugs at the time. Contextually this piece came about due to Riley’s interest in tape looping and repetition-based music like non-western sounds that were around at the time, specifically jazz and classical Indian music which is shown in this piece as a freeing Improvisational feel (Huizenga, 2024). Riley’s in C can also be seen as a political statement that encourages non-western musical practice and the breaking of western music limitations and boundaries which in result inspires and shows the audience that music does not need to conform to any rules and that experimental music is just music that doesn’t conform to someone else’s idea of classical music.

References:

• Bindeman, S.L. (2017) “Music and Silence,” in Silence in Philosophy, Literature, and Art. Brill, pp. 27–34. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004352582_005 (Accessed: November 23, 2025).
• Carl, R. (2009) Terry Riley’s In C. Oxford University Press, pp. 1–16.
• Huizenga, T. (2024) “‘In C’ Forever: The eternal evolution of Terry Riley’s minimalist masterpiece,” CRB, 7 November. Available at: https://www.classicalwcrb.org/2024-11-03/in-c-forever-the-eternal-evolution-of-terry-rileys-minimalist-masterpiece (Accessed: November 23, 2025).
• Schenbeck, L. (2007) “Terry Riley: In C (1964),” The Choral Journal; Oklahoma City, 48(3), p. 75.
• Berg , M.C. (2023) Riley Completes In C, EBSCO. Available at: https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/music/riley-completes-c (Accessed: November 23, 2025).

Offsite visit:

During week seven we took a field trip to explore the artwork ’LINKED’ by Graeme Miller which included several low powered radio transmitted audio works following a long stretch of motorway in northeast London. This motorway runs straight through residential areas and caused the relocation and demolition of many houses and residents including the artist himself; this installation also hits home for me as I grew up next door to this motorway. Each radio transmitter contains a short piece composed by Graeme featuring interviews of residents and details their experiences living through the construction of that motorway. During our visit we decided to get the tube one stop up from Leytonstone’s underground station getting out at Wanstead which is where the installation starts (and where I used to live). Prior we were given headphones and a small radio receiver which burst to life as we followed the road and located the first transmitter.

The audio picked up by our receiver was of a local resident discussing her feelings of entrapment as the construction took place and quilted her view of the neighbourhood with scaffolding, fences and the non-stop sounds of heavy machinery. This transmitter was the one I resonated with the most as I can remember vividly the loud sounds of the motorway itself and can imagine what it would have been like with heavy construction rather than just cars. This first composition really made you feel like you were within the space described with the motorway being so close and almost drowning out the sound of the transmitter itself, not to mention it being outside a residential building with people who must deal with the sound all day every day. After this we followed the motorway towards Leytonstone discovering each composition as they became audible within our headphones; it became almost instantly apparent how much of an impact this road had on the local area completely separating the towns into two sides.

My thoughts:

I think the beauty of this work is that you as the viewer become the composer in a way that you must locate and find each transmitter which firstly allows you to choose how long you listen to each one and also there is a greater incentive to take your time and not miss any, unlike if this piece was within a gallery to which it would be almost forced upon you. This piece also instantly connects you with each space, as I listened to the compositions it put me right into the interview rooms allowing me to look around and feel the experiences detailed, again, if this piece was within a gallery, it would have no such effect. I think the fact that this piece allows you to be there and see why and how people have been affected rather than just photos makes you connect and identify the political and social problems of it; also, the audio compositions are not available online or anywhere else which means you have to be there physically to experience it.

Reading task and looking into experimental music outside of the typical canon:

The article for this week’s reading task ‘Towards a definition of Experimental Music’ by Michael Nyman details heavily on John Cage’s 4’33 piece which is a composition designed for the performers to set down their instruments for 4 minutes and 33 seconds allowing only the environmental sound of the audience and space to be heard. The article details that experimental music is there to break free from western formation, allowing the artist to express with out restraint. The task for after this reading was to find a piece of experimental music that is outside the usual canon, from my interpretation of the meaning of outside the usual canon I have chosen Kiren Hebden’s track ‘Thirtysixtwentyfive’ which was his first release under his Four Tet name. To me, the out of the canon experience this song has been that it’s almost an entire album released as one singular track that explores tension and playing with experimental sonic ideas also bringing in and out parts throughout. I think it’s a fascinating idea as Kieran had the time to explore a story as within a typical album but keep his original ideas close as to bring them in whenever he felt like it almost as if performing live.

During the week six seminar we discussed sonic materialism of which included debating the meaning of noise and silence. I found discussing that sound is aways in more than one place particularly interesting as the meaning of it encapsulates the physical aspects of a sound wave and its tendency to escape away from the space it was meant to be heard within. We also discussed using sound as the artistic material, like Christina Kubisch’s ‘Electrical Walks’ which I find a profoundly fascinating way to demonstrate using sound as a material to show the absolute chaos of suburban environments due to technological, industrial and electrical increases. Also, the fact that these electromagnetic emissions are not directly sound waves but are a completely different phenomenon gives us an insight into inaudible noise pollution.

Reference Task:

Quote – ‘In the process, Leneghan questions standard bio-medical and bio-psychological studies of ecstasy, arguing that the standard methodology is overly mechanistic and/or materialistic, and ignores the lived experience of ecstasy-altered consciousness’ (Schnee, 2004, p. 70)

Paraphrase – Medical and psychological studies are an inferior way to study the effects of ecstasy as strict scientific measurements or ways of gathering data do not include the subjects own personal experiences (Schnee 70)

Bibliographical entry – Schnee, D. (2004) “The Varieties of Ecstasy Experience (Sean Leneghan),” Dancecult, 6(2), pp. 70–72. Available at: https://doi.org/10.12801/1947-5403.2014.06.02.06.